Wishing everyone a very happy New Year!

We are off tomorrow to celebrate New Year's at a remote cottage on a tiny island. The photo above was taken in the summer, and it will probably be completely snowed in there now. There is a fireplace so it will be cozy warm but there is no internet access and we'll be using this few days to recharge our ethereal batteries for the New Year.

We're back here on January 3rd.

Thanks much to all our regular readers for hanging out with us in 2008!

Here's some simple exercise instructions for how to get a bubble butt in no time. All you need is a yoga mat.

via Exercises for Buttocks

The Barbie doll turns 50 this year. The doll debuted at the New York Toy Fair back in 1959 and instantly became popular with little girls everywhere. She was so different from all the other 'baby-like' dolls.

Where did the idea for Barbie come from? Here's a likely but surprising story about her origins. Barbie was based on a German sex doll. The owner of Mattel had visited Germany on vacation in the mid 50's and she had seen the plastic sex doll which inspired Mattel to create a Barbie look-alike. See the story in the video below;

The Barbies photo above is via mauren veras.